Uncle Henry's Playhouse

[mredfield]

I recently came across a copy of this game (sealed!) and browsing Scummvm's source code, apparently you can enable support of the other Groovie games (this one, clandestinity and 11H if I'm not mistaken).

I know it's still experimental, but, I expected at least to get this game running, but I had no luck with it. I tried compiling it and running for both Win7 x64 and Linux x64...

Is there any know easy way to test this game (and 11H?)? I know the source code is well documented, but coding is not my strong.

Thank you!

[clone2727]

Try compiling with "--enable-groovie2" or "--enable-all-engines" as an argument to configure. No idea if Uncle Henry will start at all, though.

[mredfield]

Much easier than enabling it by hand.

Should have read the makefile beforehand. I'll try it tonight and post the results.

Thank you!

[mredfield]

Well, it did find my game but it won't even start!

Guess I'll stick with DosBOX for now!

Thanks!

[ScottT]

Well, it did find my game but it won't even start!

What was the error message? The game certainly wouldn't have been playable but I'd have expected at least the Groovie logo to start.

[mredfield]

Well, I decided to dig a little bit further and... It seems that there's some sort of audio file missing (weird, since I dumped the ISO myself from the retail game!)...

marcelo@linux-desktop:~/Downloads/scummvm-scummvm-8004a82$ ./scummvm -d=999
Debuglevel (from command line): 0
WARNING: SDL mixer output buffer size: 1024 differs from desired: 2048!
WARNING: You are missing a valid 'translations.dat' file. GUI translation will not be available!
WARNING: Could not find theme 'scummmodern' falling back to builtin!
User picked target 'unclehenry' (gameid 'groovie')...
Looking for a plugin supporting this gameid... Groovie
Starting 'Groovie engine game'
Groovie::Music: sample.ad not found!

I tried disabling the audio and...

marcelo@linux-desktop:~/Downloads/scummvm-scummvm-8004a82$ ./scummvm -d=999
Debuglevel (from command line): 0
WARNING: SDL mixer output buffer size: 1024 differs from desired: 2048!
WARNING: You are missing a valid 'translations.dat' file. GUI translation will not be available!
WARNING: Could not find theme 'scummmodern' falling back to builtin!
User picked target 'unclehenry' (gameid 'groovie')...
Looking for a plugin supporting this gameid... Groovie
Starting 'Groovie engine game'
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: Invalid header with size=0 and param=30!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: JPEG frame (unfinshed)!
WARNING: Groovie::ROQ: Invalid header with size=0 and param=30!
Segmentation fault

Well, just like you said, I got to the groovie logo, Trilobyte... As soon as you get to the title screen it crashes!

[ScottT]

Clandestiny (and, apparently, Uncle Henry) appear to not use XMI music, hence the missing file. Invalid header is an interesting one though - seems they kept tweaking the engine slightly between each game.